Blood's a Rover by James Ellroy: Perks of the Job

Saturday, April 18, 2009, 6:33 PM

There are many, many perks to having Nat Sobel as your agent. Here's one of them:

My doorbell rang at 8:30 this morning, and it being a Saturday, I was a little discombobulated. I woke up pretty sharpish when I found this baby on my doorstep. Apart from the early hour, the timing is perfect. I'm just finishing up John Ajvide Lindqvist's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (which, by the way, is the best vampire novel since Bram Stoker's DRACULA). So, I will be cracking open Ellroy's long awaited conclusion to the Underworld USA trilogy some time this weekend, and I can't wait. I have been told that BLOOD'S A ROVER is a masterpiece.

I shall blog about it when I'm done (fancy a review, Mr Brennan?), though that might be a week or two. I am a tortuously slow reader; Ellroy's isn't the easiest writing to chew and digest, and this is a pretty hefty chunk of book at more than 640 pages. I have leafed through, and from the odd sentence that I've read, it seems closer in style to AMERICAN TABLOID than THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, but that's only a first impression. Oh, and the first section of the book is titled "CLUSTER FUCK".

About Me

I'm the author of thrillers THE TWELVE (a.k.a THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST), COLLUSION, STOLEN SOULS and RATLINES. My debut novel won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Visit my website at www.StuartNeville.com.